If you’re trying to figure out what Tim Thomas is thinking or doing, save yourself the headache and just give up. Take the good with the bewildering. 

One of the biggest local sports legends in recent memory, Thomas made his 2012 even more perplexing for fans when he told Peter Chiarelli last month that he might not play next season and then suggested as much with a Facebook post Sunday. 

“At the age of 38,” he wrote, “I believe it is time to put my time and energies into those areas and relationships that I have neglected. That is why at this time I feel the most important thing I can do in my life is to reconnect with the three F's. 

“Friends, Family, and Faith.

"This is what I plan on doing over the course of the next year."

The average Bruins’ fan's reaction probably included a fourth F that we’ll leave out, as well as a fifth F for “frustration” they’ve felt with the goaltender since he helped lead them to their first Stanley Cup victory in 39 years last June with a Conn Smythe performance.

Frustration, confusion, the works. Really anything but indifference. 

Here’s what we have learned since he has gone from an AHL goalie in his 30s to one of the best to ever play the position: Nothing, whether it’s a person, an organization or a cap hit, is going to change Tim Thomas.

As he’s let his true colors show more and more, everyone else -- whether fans or the media, and the media has been every bit as irrational as the fans at some points (Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette and TSN's Dave Hodge chief among them) -- has had difficulty identifying with him. 

The questions are only natural: What kind of teammate skips being honored by the White House when he knows full well his absence would be a bigger story than the team’s distinction? What kind of competitor -- and one who’s time in the NHL has been so short due to the long road it took him to get there -- would be willing to sacrifice one of the last (maybe the last) productive season of his career? Where are his priorities?

"I don't want to see anybody crying over hockey," Thomas said after his daughter cried following Joel Ward's game-winning goal in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the B's. At the time he said it, Thomas was simply saying he didn't want to see a seven-year-old cry, but you can also get the feeling that Thomas -- who on the ice looks like as tough a competitor as there is -- is well aware that hockey isn't the most important thing in the world. In fact, he said as much Saturday when he said that the game "just not that important right now" given the world's economic state. 

Here’s a music analogy, but trust that it’s relevant: When the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1966-67, George Harrison didn’t want to be there. He would go on to say years later that he was bored at the time, had lost interest in what the band was doing and wanted to be back in India. And this was before the Beatles hated each other. 

How in the world does a rock musician in the 1960s not want to be a part of that? You can question it all you want, but that album got done and the fans liked it. Tim Thomas has been successful despite not always taking the typical course of action for someone in his position. 

This is no knock against Thomas as a person (his character’s been blown out of proportion enough, and he’s actually one of the more friendly star players one could cover), but he’s always been about what’s in his best interest, and he was the same Tim Thomas when he won them the Cup as he is today. Nobody needed to agree with him or understand his views (the average hockey fan likely didn’t even know of them at the time) for him to win two Vezinas and bring the Cup to Boston. 

It’s been an interesting 2012 for Thomas and the Bruins, and there’s still six months left for new developments. First, there was the White House fiasco, then the Facebook post in Buffalo that was followed with the declaration that he would not address his political views in person. Both incidents led to further media scrutiny, so much so that he couldn’t compliment his teammates without his use of the word “they” being questioned.

What has followed one of the best playoff performances Boston has ever seen -- political statements, increased scrutiny, absurd accusations of racism because he exercised a right -- will put a wrinkle in Thomas’ page in the history books, but don’t think for a second that he’s ruined his legacy. Fans might be harder on him because all of this is coming in a season in which the team underachieved and was bounced in the first round of the playoffs, but in the long run Tim Thomas will be remembered for the good stuff. 

Tim Thomas -- the Glenn Beck disciple who could tell you any statistic of his off the top of his head -- did what every team wants their star players to do: he won them a championship. That’s what people will ultimately remember about Thomas, regardless of whether he’s played his last game in Boston. 

If he has, it is without question an odd way to go out, especially considering his level of play. At the end of the day, it might also be fitting in a way. Thomas has always done things differently. On the ice, he tends goal with his unorthodox style and off the ice he’s shown qualities that may be divergent of the common star. The latter qualities have never been defined Thomas’ reputation until recently, but they’ve always been there. 

When Chiarelli spoke of Thomas’ intentions Friday, it had a similar feeling to the day that the netminder didn’t attend the White House in that the entire hockey world (or in Friday’s case, the part of the hockey world that was paying attention to anything other than the Cup finals) was waiting for Thomas to speak up. Once again, he took Facebook, and while he didn’t say for sure that he wouldn’t be playing next season, he at the very least conveyed that hockey isn’t his top priority right now. 

The public probably won’t understand that, but it doesn't have to. Nobody’s ever had to understand Tim Thomas.